Thursday, December 11, 2014

Warm Greetings

A trio of Mangrove Swallows (tropical relatives of our Tree
Swallow) was swirling behind the ferry that crosses the Gulf of Nicoya, showing
off the impressive aerobatic skills shared by all members of the swallow
family. Brown Pelicans travelled low in
formation over the water. Magnificent
Frigatebirds, fork-tailed and long-winged wanderers of the open ocean, circled
higher, watching and waiting to steal the hard-fought-for meal of a Laughing
Gull or Royal Tern. The occasional Brown
Booby would cross in front of the ship.

Brown Pelicans aboard a small fishing boat in the Gulf of Nicoya

Our arrival in Costa Rica yesterday marks the beginning of
the fourth annual research expedition of the Nicoya Peninsula Avian Research
Station. In each of these four years my
research partner Sean Graesser and I have traveled to the Nicoya Peninsula of
the northwestern portion of the country to collect important data on some of
the more vulnerable species of neotropical migratory songbirds, which spend their winters here. Over the
next seven weeks we will run several bird banding stations to capture, mark, and study these
long-distance migrants, and to collect data from individuals that we banded in
the past that have returned.

The sun was going down as we turned down the dirt road that
leads to Finca Pura Vida, the farm on which we will live for the next two months. As we tried (in vain) to dodge the myriad potholes, two bird
calls familiar to us northerners came through the open windows: the "stchip" of a Yellow Warbler and the “kinkachurr” of a Summer Tanager. I welcomed these as warm greetings to our
return to Costa Rica. It’s good to be back!